Writing from the body
This is the first homework for a new course I'm doing at the Writing School: SATURN RETURNS “Whatever your age, your body is many years younger. In fact, even if you're middle aged, most of you may be just 10 years old or less.” So proclaimed a New York Times article in 2005. I’m sure we’ve all heard of this idea, which arises from the fact that most of the body's tissues are under constant renewal. That turns out to be not completely true as a few of the body's cell types endure from birth to death without renewal, and this special minority includes some or all of the cells of the cerebral cortex. But the average age of cells in the main body of the gut is 15.9 years, the cells lining the stomach last only five days and red blood cells, bruised and battered after traveling nearly 1,000 miles through the maze of the body's circulatory system, last only 120 days. An adult human liver probably has a turnover time of 300 to 500 days, and the ent